Special
by Sandshrew777
Summary: Kurt Hummel does not like a man like Finn. He doesn't. There's nothing about Finn that's attractive. Nothing at all. So there's really no need for him to be thinking about Finn. Isn't there?


**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. The Police own "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic".**

**Author's Note: This takes place after the episode "Acafellas".**

* * *

He isn't sure how it started, but every time he sees Finn nothing happens.

Kurt isn't attracted to Finn's body. He doesn't like how tall he is, how muscular his shoulders are when everyone gets in a circle to give each other back rubs at the beginning of rehearsal. He doesn't like Finn's hands touching him, dancing across his back in short jabs, somehow squishing out every little bit of tension he's screwed up into his back and neck. His eyes aren't deep, his smile isn't pretty, and his body isn't even perfectly toned.

Finn is nothing special.

--------

And so when Kurt asked him for help - and how he had hated that, hated relying on someone else, especially Finn whom he liked least of all - Kurt was a little surprised when Finn assumed he'd liked him. That wasn't the case at all. Not even close.

He doesn't like the football uniforms, the awful colors that YSL would have struck down in a New York minute, the clinging fabric and the overwhelming smell of body odor that crashes into him like a sledgehammer. He certainly doesn't like the players who leer at him in the showers and make fun of how small he is.

And he isn't ashamed of his body and doesn't feel lonely without his coats and shirts he'd picked out just to make him look longer, leaner. And he doesn't ever notice that Finn and Puck are the only two who never say a word to him in the showers or look his way.

Puck is nothing special, after all, and by extension neither is Finn.

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Kurt never holds back a comment, a jibe, a sharp crack. And he never holds back when it comes to Finn. He's always making fun of his terrible fashion sense.

"Whatever sweatshop turned out that fashion crime needs to be burnt down," he said of Finn's white and brown polka-dot vest. A weak jab, like they always are, but a jab nevertheless.

"But then all the kids wouldn't have anyplace to work at," Finn replied, mouth pursed and eyebrows concerned.

Kurt had rolled his eyes and turned back to his music.

Finn is special, all right - special ed.

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Kurt doesn't remember how it felt when he was lifted up by the football team for kicking that extra point, that gamewinner. Well, sure, he remembers how it felt - elation ("I won!"); validation ("I'm good!"); fear ("Why are my feet not on the ground?"); pride ("Daddy, look at me! Look!"); fatigue ("Four quarters? More like four trips through Macy's without a credit card.").

But he doesn't remember how it felt, how Finn had slapped him on the back and nearly sent him flying; how they were all touching him, crowd-surfing him along as if he were one of them, normal; how they grabbed whatever part of him was handy without fear of how he'd take it ("I'm touching the gay guy's butt, shit!"); how they grabbed whatever they could so that they could keep him up there, defying gravity, on top of the world; how Finn had looked like he was going to hug him and stopped himself at the last minute; Finn's hand like a hot washcloth, like an iron pressing into his shoulder blades.

He doesn't remember any of that.

Maybe Finn is special, but it's only because he's the only one of his kind.

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It's silly, really, it is, but Kurt has never known anyone remotely like Finn. He's so incredibly stupid and so, so incredibly unsure. He has the notes right more often than not - more often than Kurt does when they sight-read, but Finn never notices that - but Finn never sings very loud.

"If you're going to be hideous," Kurt said to him one day, "Do it at the top of your lungs, so we can fix it."

Finn just blushed and mumbled. Kurt rolled his eyes. Mr. Schue said something more reassuring, and then Finn sang a little louder, but only that one time.

And it's so stupid, because Finn's voice isn't bad. It isn't screechy and it isn't gravelly and it isn't stretching for notes he can't hit. It doesn't do runs like Mercedes' or belt like Rachel's or swirl melodically like Tina's. It doesn't do anything other than sound like Finn talking with a melody.

And that certainly isn't anything special, nothing worth noting, nothing magical. Not even in the slightest.

--------

One day, Kurt is sitting at the piano, plunking out notes for himself. He can do this much, get himself started on a song, and then he can go. Sometimes, if he's singing really high like he likes to, he has to make sure he's jumping the octave correctly. And that's what he's checking when Finn trudges in, leans in the doorframe, listens to him sing. Kurt doesn't notice.

"Though I've tried to tell him," Kurt starts, singing it slowly, far more slowly than it should be, just to make sure he gets it right.

"Of the feelings I have for him in my heart," he adds, gaining a little strength, a little more power.

"Every time that I come near him," he sings. The song isn't about anyone. He isn't singing about anyone in particular. There's nobody special enough to get a song just for himself.

"I just lose my nerve," he half-sings, half-whispers.

"As I've done from the start," he manages to croak out, still getting the notes right but with terrible tone. He isn't singing well.

"Every little thing he does is magic," the voice breaks in, steady and calm and _right_ and Kurt looks up to see Finn smiling, nodding at him. "Everything he do just turns me on," he adds.

And Kurt joins in there, Finn coming closer and closer, moving to the beat, even doing a cute little spin move that Kurt almost chuckles at. They sing and they sing, Finn never once replacing the 'he' and the 'him' with the 'she' and the 'her' like he's supposed to, singing it Kurt's way but in his own octave, down where he's comfortable.

It isn't bad at all and Finn is smiling and Kurt is even smiling and when they get to the end he's holding on to a note and Finn's got it too and they stop together and Finn looks down at Kurt on the piano bench. Finn's smile gets larger.

"I love that song," he says. "That was fun."

Kurt just stares. His smile is long gone.

"So...I was hoping you could help me with something, Kurt," he says. He's back to being Finn again, back to the nervous little shamble in his shoulders, the faint blush, the tentative tone.

"And I should help you because?" Kurt asks, eyebrow arching without him noticing, lips pursing without him telling them to. He doesn't even think to glare and yet he does.

"I got you onto the team," Finn says, quickly even, as if he'd thought that Kurt would say that. But that's not Finn - Finn doesn't _think_.

"Anyway, Rachel was helping me with my singing and stuff, but she's so busy now and we don't...talk now..." Finn mutters.

Kurt plunks out a minor fifth in Finn's range.

"Sing it on an 'ah', and make sure you drop your jaw. And stand up straight. You look like a munchkin when you're slouching," Kurt snaps.

And Finn smiles a little for some reason - Kurt doesn't know why, for once - and off they go.

They get to a note that Finn's stretching for, right at the tip of his range, and Kurt's about to stop playing and move on to another warm-up when he decides to listen to an impulse for once and make Finn keep going. And he does and Finn scoops up the first note, stretches for the second, and on the third Kurt knows Finn's going to screech, that his vocal cords are going to give in, that he just won't be able to do it.

But then out it comes, that third note. Kurt keeps playing and Finn keeps going somehow, stretching for four notes way beyond a baritone's range and even gray area for a tenor.

"You did something with your voice," Kurt says immediately once Finn finally screeches out. "You flipped something."

"Oh...yeah," Finn mumbles and Kurt almost snaps at him to stop doing that already and have some balls, for goodness' sake. "I...when I'm singing, I sing in, like, different voices. So I just changed voices."

"Whose did you change it to?" Kurt asks. He needs to know how Finn did that - it's a special talent. Even Kurt can't do it; he just goes straight to falsetto for his high notes.

"What?" Finn echoes.

"What did you change it to?" Kurt repeats. "D'you have, like, names for your voices?"

Finn must be rubbing off on him. He sounds like a complete moron.

"Well, yeah," Finn starts but then he's blushing like mad and Kurt can't stop from arching an eyebrow at that.

"Come on," Kurt wheedles - he's not used to that, he doesn't push people, doesn't like it when people aren't free to do what they want, get told you should be daddy's little boy and that Mom would have wanted it that way. He doesn't like to force people to do anything.

And yet: here he is.

"It's...oh, man," Finn mumbles. He's hyperventilating, a little. "It's...well, I was thinking of you."

Well.

That's..._special_.

"Not like that," Finn adds quickly, his hands fanning in front of him. Kurt relaxes. "I mean, 'cause you go so high and stuff. So I just thought of the notes you hit all the time and...did that."

"Well. That's...good, I guess," Kurt says. "But you need to have good head tone. You can't always be in chest voice like that. So put on your gay voice and echo me," Kurt orders and starts running Finn through his head voice, forcing him to get it right, to learn how to do this because he asked for it, he specifically asked for Kurt's help and now he's getting it.

When they're finished - Kurt can't take it anymore, can't watch another note bust out of Finn so nervously, so tentatively, so completely like a cute little lamb - Finn sticks his hands in the back pockets of his jeans.

"Kurt," he says and Kurt turns around, eyebrows raised, lips pursed and taut, politely waiting but nothing more because Finn isn't interesting and isn't going to have anything special to say.

"Thanks. You're a really nice guy, you know?" Finn says. "I mean, yeah, you're a bit of a bitch sometimes and honestly I thought you had this big crush on me, but...you're still really cool. For a guy who wears peacoats and dances to girly songs."

Finn is smirking and Kurt narrows his eyes.

"You know what a peacoat is?" Kurt asks.

Finn strides past him, that taunting smirk still on his face.

"Of course. I'm not an idiot," he says, and walks out the door.

Kurt does not notice how the air that's just rushed past him smells like cinnamon and apples. He does not think that a smirk makes Finn's jawline look a little sharper. He does not want to turn around and look at Finn's tight ass. He is not a little dizzy and he's not even close to needing a minute to process everything.

A few minutes later, Kurt heads for his car.

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**Author's Note: Please review. :) If you do, I'll try and keep Kurt on the wagon. Or off the wagon, if you prefer...**


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